COVID-19: 57 health workers infected in Plateau, cases in Nigeria now 34,259

Coronavirus Pandemic

The global coronavirus pandemic has continued to take its toll on health workers even as the National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, announced that the number of infections in the country have risen to risen to 34,259 with confirmation of 643 new cases on Wednesday evening.

NCDC said on its twitter handle that 20 of the new infections were confirmed in Plateau State where the State Commissioner for Health, Dr Nimkong Lar, also said 57 health workers have been infected with the virus in the course of their duties on Wednesday.

Lar who spoke at a press briefing after an executive council meeting in Jos, the state capital said the infected  health  workers were those involved in management of COVID-19 patients in primary health centres, hospitals and private clinics across the state.

The agency said that no new state had reported a case in the past 24 hours.

According to the centre, till date, 34,259 cases have been confirmed, 13,999 cases discharged, while 760 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

It said that the 643 new cases recorded were reported from 19 states thus, Lagos (230), Oyo (69), FCT (51), Edo (43), Osun (35), Rivers (30), Ebonyi (30), Kaduna (28), and Ogun (27).

Others were, Ondo (23), Plateau (20), Benue (17), Enugu (16), Imo (10), Delta (6), Kano (4), Nasarawa (2), Kebbi (1), and Ekiti (1).

Meanwhile, the agency in line  with the national strategy on testing, has continued to scale up diagnostic capacity for COVID-19 in the country.

‪Therefore, ”53 laboratories have now been activated for COVID-19 testing across 31 states in the country.

”These include Federal‬, State‬, Private, and GeneXpert laboratories,” it announced.

‪The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NCDC said it has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in a whole-of-society approach.